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This question assumes that life has a purpose. I can accept that there may be no purpose.

If you had to take a guess, what happens after we die(do we go on living?)?

My wife would collect half a million in insurance money and after an appropriate mourning period of three to four weeks, would go out and get some strange. Seriously, you can't go on living if you die, that would be a contradiction so my first response would be that I would become worm food. But what you're really asking (I guess) is if I believe that there is a part of who I am that lives on, apart from the physical body, the memories that others have of me or any memes I may have propogated or created. I really don't know, I am not aware of any validated physical evidence that points to an 'afterlife' but I have some personal stories which point to reincarnation as a possible explanation and I can tell you what I would desire, but that would not make it so.

Do you believe in a soul?

What is your definition of a soul? This seems to be another way of asking the previous question.

So believers are prone to speculation and skeptics like to stick with the facts. That's no reason to have huge opinion wars based on this polarization. There is no right way to think and wrong way to think. They are two halves of a necessarily whole.

I may think ? but that does not mean I know ? I must simply feel instead ? and harm with physical assault or verbal bashing is just as outrageous as believing I know anything.

Logic works -- Physics of the Universe work --- Like Swami always says wait till I throw a rock at the back of your head. It makes complete sense.

BUT JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING WORKS DOESN?T MEAN IT?S RIGHT?

Our knowledge and structures may have proofs and textbooks that back them up ? but it doesn?t mean it is correct?.

Blind faith is quite a controversy around here and it should be that way, but what does that say about believing in logic or mathematics -- Just cuz it works doesn?t mean it is right

And then you might say, ?How do you get anywhere without believing in something??
I?d just say your trying too hard. Instead I?ll just believe in everyone ? even the sick bastards out there that do crazy shit ? They just help me learn more about our abilities

--------------------"...and to the left where up is down now stand a zebra made of shapes of me and silver and the sun so bring no guilt with you up above the flatline let's just hit the sky exploding into one." [ HUM ]

skaMariaPastora:
"So believers are prone to speculation and skeptics like to stick with the facts"

Speculation has nothing to do with it. Rational thought and critical analysis are what seperate skeptics from knee-jerk believers. A skeptic can quite easliy become a believer, when the facts warrant it.

One time Arthur was scared out of his wits when Merlin ran around brandishing a huge butcher's knife like a madman. "What are you doing?" the boy asked in terror.
"Thinking," Merlin replied. "Don't you think this way?"
"No," Arthur said.
Merlin suddenly stopped. "Ah, then I must be mistaken. My impression was that all mortals used their minds like knives, cutting and dissecting. I wanted to see what that was like. If I may say so, there is a good deal of violence in what you mortals call rationality."
The wizard's mind is like a lens that gathers in what it sees and lets everything pass through without distortion. The advantage of this kind of awareness is that it unites, whereas the rational mind seperates. The rational mind looks "out there" at a world of objects in time and space, whereas the wizard sees everything as a part of himself. In place of "out there" and "in here," there is only one seamless flow.

Maybe you would deteriorate quickly, evolving, but some people of God are treated pretty well by decomposition after death. One man, for reasons of investigating his death, I think, looked so good when they unearthed him that the dead man's son was called and asked if he would like to come and see his father.

--------------------"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:5

Why do skeptics insist on grouping all "believers" into one group whether they believe that God wants them to be a suicide bomber or they believe in the infinite possibilities of the human mind.

The people in the middle-east are just about the most closed-minded people on Earth so how can you justify that camparison?

now that comparison sounds like a knee-jerk response to me.

It seems to be that the skeptics here are reactionaries, quick to strike down any theory that doesn't meet with their definition of proof.
I'm not saying that the believers have a monopoly on truth - nobody does, but maybe we can see just a little bit beyond ourselves without the need to verify everything.

"Rational thought and critical analysis are what seperate skeptics from knee-jerk believers"

that's outrageous to think that only skeptics are capable of rational thought. That would certainly make scientific progress come to a screeching halt since all scientists would be skeptics.

Believers are actually rational beings, we're just not ruled by logic.

Why do skeptics insist on grouping all "believers" into one group whether they believe that God wants them to be a suicide bomber or they believe in the infinite possibilities of the human mind.

An unquestioning mindset about one's religion or county's leaders or motives is what allows wars to happen. An unquestioning mindset about paranormal phenomena is a also reflective of illogical thinking or blind acceptance and leads to hucksterism.

Well if you say that all believers are the same and group us with suicide bombers,

then I will group you with the skeptical church of the 17th century who denied Galileo's theories about the solar system and called him a fraud because he was ahead of his time. It was the skeptics in the church (ironic isn't it?) who were preventing the advance of science.
Before Galileo could use a telescope to see the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, his ideas about the solar system could not be proved.

And most of us believers don't have an "unquestioning mindset about paranormal phenomona" - we have the same questions as everybody else. Why is it so hard for you to believe that we can be both logical and open-minded? You paint us all as gullible morons who call 1900 psychics.